Related Links

Connect with Texas Bar

You are here:

Past Presidents

Past Presidents

(Jan. 12, 1885 – Dec. 16, 1974)

ANGUS G. WYNNE,
SR.State Bar President, 1939-1940

Angus G. Wynne, Sr., was elected 59th President of the voluntary
Texas Bar Association in 1939. When the State Bar Act became law in
1940, he became the first President of the new integrated State Bar of
Texas. Born in Wills Point, Texas, on January 12, 1885, Angus Wynne was
the son of attorney William B. "Buck" Wynne. From 1901-1909
Wynne attended Tyler Commercial College and the University of Texas,
except for a one-year break when he worked in Washington, D.C., as a
secretary to Texas Congressman Gordon Russell. After studying at the
University of Texas law school, Wynne was admitted to the Bar in 1909
and began his practice in Wills Point. He subsequently lived in Kaufman
and Longview; and
after he moved to Dallas in 1954, he continued to maintain his Longview
office.

Wynne and his wife Nemo had two sons. Four members of Wynne's family
(himself, his father, and two brothers, B.J. and Toddie) were admitted
to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court on the same day, which was a
record for the Supreme Court. A third brother Gordon and a nephew of
Wynne were also lawyers. In 1969 Wynne established an endowed
professorship at the University of Texas in memory of his father who
died in 1937; and Wynne himself later received the same honor when his
son, Angus G. Wynne, Jr., established a professorship in his name.

Known as "one of Texas' most colorful and greatest trial
lawyers," Wynne served on the State Bar Rules Committee in
1952-1953. He was a member of the American Bar Association for 50 years
and served on its House of Delegates. Wynne was chairman of the Texas
Supreme Court Advisory Committee, a trustee of the Southwestern Legal
Foundation, a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the
Texas Bar Foundation, and chairman of the University of Texas
Development Board until 1967 when he was named trustee emeritus. He was
one of the seven founding incorporators of the U.T. Law School
Foundation in 1952. He belonged to the Masons, the Elks, and Phi Kappa
Psi fraternity. Wynne died in Dallas on December 16, 1974.